The present invention relates to a system of dental appliances having various sizes and types which may be used to treat a child, an adolescent and/or an adult patient to obtain a satisfactory orthodontic result without adjustments or appointments, enabling the dental appliance to be sold directly to the public over the counter. The various dental appliances may treat a malocclusion such as, for example, an overjet, an overbite, temporomandibular problems, crowding, rotations and/or spacing.
It is generally known to provide dental care to a patient. Typically, the patient visits, for example, a dentist or other type of care provider at the office of the care provider. The dentist, upon examination of the patient, may provide the patient with a dental appliance to treat the condition of the patient. For example, a patient may have an overbite which may require a dental appliance to be placed within the mouth of the patient.
Dental care subsequent to placement of the dental appliance within the mouth may require, for example, fixing bracket attachments and/or bands to most or all of the teeth. In addition, adjustable wires may be implemented, and force may be applied towards the teeth by, for example, rubber bands, springs, wires, levers, or the like, to move the teeth of the patient into a proper location. Guidance of teeth often requires one or more adjustments and/or dental office visits. As a result, the patient may be required to allot a considerable amount of time towards receiving dental care.
Various removable dental appliances have been developed in an attempt to make dental treatment simpler, less time-consuming, and/or less costly to the patient. Often these removable dental appliances correct one or two specific tooth movements or problems, but do not correct an entire dentition.
Other known dental appliances replace preformed sockets with a single groove or slot in an attempt to design a dental appliance which simplifies its effects on a dentition. However, these single-slotted dental appliances cause various problems when correcting a midline, space closure, overbite, eruption guidance, overjet, temporomandibular joint problems, rotations, crowding, etc.
For example, a single, slotted dental appliance has no interruptions in the slot to allow the dental appliance to place force in a mesio-distal direction, forward or backward, on either side of a mouth, or from left to right in the front of the mouth. As a result, a midline of the user cannot be corrected and/or spaces existing between the teeth when there is little overjet present cannot be closed. To properly correct overbite, space closure at the front of the mouth is essential; therefore, overbite cannot be adequately corrected. Correction of overjet in an absence of overbite correction causes temporomandibular joint problems which cannot be corrected when initially present. If the user wears a dental appliance which does not have sockets at a time when the teeth are erupting, proper guidance of teeth cannot be accomplished. Moreover, crowding and/or rotations may also occur and, if present, may not be properly corrected.
In addition, known dental appliances having a single groove or slot may treat patients in a first age group but may not be sized and/or designed to treat patients of a second age group.
A need, therefore, exists for a system of dental appliances having various sizes and types and a method for treating malocclusions of patients of various ages without adjustments wherein the dental appliances may treat patients of various ages efficiently to obtain a satisfactory result without any adjustments or appointments.